MflH 

Spampton  Sketches 


hV 


fi 


A  Change  of  Bas 

E.  2j.  OIi|trI)*0trr 


GJtjp  3lnBtttutp  PrrBB 
Hampton,  Utrgtnta 
1311 


1 


I 


v» 


THIS  SKETCH  HAS  APPEARED  IN 
THE  CHRISTIAN  INTELLIGENCER'' 
AND  THE  '  SOUTHERN  WORKMAN” 


JLcWVrl  £  TB./v.S 


3  \  ^ 

V\- 


A  CHANGE  OF  BASE 


BY  EDWARD  L.  CHICHESTER 

TT  is  hard  to  define  just  what  it  was 
that  attracted  me  to  Peters.  He  was 
tall  and  black,  with  those  long  hands 
and  feet  and  the  thin  calves  one  sees  in 
the  photographs  of  African  savages. 
These  characteristics  came  out  strongly 
on  the  ball  field  at  Hampton,  where  I  first 
caught  sight  of  him.  His  fingers  seemed 
to  rake  the  sky  when  the  ball  came 
in  his  direction,  and  the  way  he  doubled 
and  twisted  himself  in  pitching,  or  steal¬ 
ing  a  base,  made  us  laugh. 

But  with  these  “shines  on  the  ball  field” 
the  trifling  and  comic  in  Peters  came  to 
an  end  The  real  man  was  dignified.  Back 
of  the  black  mask  was  a  reticent  soul,  and 
as  you  looked  into  his  searching  eyes 
you  felt  the  presence  of  a  self-contained, 
self-controlled  nature  He  rarely  smiled, 
and  when  he  did  the  sudden  gleam  of 
white  teeth  expressed  no  abandonment 
of  mirth  but  only  a  passing  sense  of 
the  humorous  that  would  scarcely 
have  been  noticed  if  his  face  had  been  a 
white  one  and  the  contrast  between 
teeth  and  skin  less  marked. 


You  felt  that  the  boy  had  had  an  ex¬ 
perience.  He  had  made  some  kind  of  a 
fight.  He  had  learned  something  in  the 
school  of  life,  and  grown  restrained  and 
wary  as  we  all  do  after  we  have  measur¬ 
ed  our  wills  with  circumstances,  and 
realized  that  every  victory  is  dearly 
bought  and  far  from  complete. 

Peters’  story  was  a  common  one, 
hardly  worth  telling  from  the  stand¬ 
point  of  events.  He  was  brought  up  in 
New  York  on  the  upper  west  side,  one 
of  the  65,000  Negroes  whose  presence  in 
the  city  is  giving  the  metropolis  its 
tangible  Negro  problem.  I  don’t  know 
much  about  his  people.  His  mother 
probably  worked,  as  so  many  Negro 
wives  and  mothers  do  in  the  Northern 
cities,  while  their  men  folk,  and  es¬ 
pecially  their  growing  sons,  trifle. 

Added  to  the  inconsequential  ways  of 
youth,  making  it  hard  to  settle  down  to 
anything  with  steadiness  and  persist¬ 
ence,  the  Negro  boy  faces  the  fact  that 
white  folks,  the  folks  who  monopolize 
the  wealth  and  learning  of  the  society 
in  which  he  finds  himself,  do  not  ex¬ 
pect  very  much  of  him,  and  worse  than 
this,  that  race  feeling  has  closed  most 


of  the  doors  to  preferment  and  advance¬ 
ment  to  the  man  with  a  black  skin. 
Peters  fell  into  the  ways  of  others  of 
his  class.  He  was  idle  and  purposeless 
except  that  he  got  all  the  fun  he  could, 
and  his  cool,  self-controlled  spirit,  com¬ 
bined  with  a  body  made  of  steel  springs, 
soon  made  him  a  star  among  the  local  ball 
players.  The  sports,  both  white  and 
black,  delighted  in  such  a  youth,  and 
Peters  gained  in  repu  tation  and  grew 
satisfied  with  his  attainments  and  pros¬ 
pects. 

The  boy’s  mother  knew  that  some¬ 
thing  was  wrong.  She  lamented  the 
fact  that  her  child  had  grown  beyond 
her  control,  and  dreaded  a  catastrophe 
that  she  felt  sure  must  li*e  at  the  end  of 
the  road  he  was  following.  In  some 
way  she  was  able  to  get  him  packed  off  to 
Virginia  and  entered  at  Hampton  before 
he  had  broken  with  decent  living.  He 
did  not  come  as  an  incorrigible;  Hamp¬ 
ton  is  not  a  reform  school.  But  all  the 
strength  of  his  nature,  and  it  was  a  strong 
one,  was  devoted  to  sports,  and  the 
career  that  appealed  to  him  was  the 
short-lived  one  of  the  popular  idol. 
How  the  rooters  of  the  upper  west  side 


used  to  yell  when  he  came  to  the  bat! 
This  was  music  that  made  his  blood 
leap.  A  school  with  its  regular  hours, 
requirements  of  close  application,  un¬ 
interesting  studies.  School!  the  very 
thought  of  it  was  stifling. 

Peters  began  by  falling  in  line  with 
the  routine  of  the  place.  The  military 
part  of  it  pleased  him,  and  the  manual 
training  furnished  an  outlet  for  his  en¬ 
ergies.  Then  came  the  inevitable  letting 
up  in  attention  as  the  work  lost  the 
charm  of  novelty. 

He  was  in  the  pink  of  condition 
physically;  regular  hours  for  sleep  and 
exercise,  and  good  food  had  done  their 
work.  Then  it  was  that  the  pull  of  the 
habits  of  the  years  spent  about  town 
made  itself  felt. 

I  don’t  know  what  it  was  that  Peters 
did,  perhaps  he  indulged  in  a  surrepti¬ 
tious  smoke,  or  visited  Hampton  town 
out  of  hours  and  without  permission; 
at  any  rate  he  was  summoned  to  the  of¬ 
fice  to  give  an  account  of  himself,  and 
this  summons  was  not  from  a  white  man 
but  from  a  man  of  his  own  color.  Peters 
had  that  in  him  which  makes  the  black 
man  submit  to  the  white  man  without  a 


sacrifice  of  dignity,  but  to  be  called  to 
account  by  a  black  man  ! — well,  we  stall 
see. 

He  entered  the  office  game.  His 
sporting  life  had  fitted  him  for  just  this 
sort  of  encounter.  That  big  Negro  be¬ 
hind  the  desk  should  learn  at  once  that 
Peters  was  no  cringing  school  boy,  and 
he  did.  The  vocabulary  of  the  New  York 
street  urchin  is  rich  in  invective,  and 
Peters  proved  that  his  tongue  shared 
the  suppleness  of  his  other  members. 
As  he  poured  out  his  stream  of  scorn 
and  indignation,  a  great  black  hand  ap¬ 
peared  before  his  face  and  the  voice  of 
the  Commandant’s  assistant,  for  it  was 
he,  remarked  in  the  quietest  tone  possi¬ 
ble  : 

“That’ll  do,  Peters,  you  are  in  no  con¬ 
dition  to  talk;  go  to  your  room  and  see 
me  to-morrow  at  this  time,”  and  the 
hand  motioned  him  off,  while  the 
Captain,  as  he  was  called,  turned  to 
speak  with  someone  else. 

It  was  humiliating  to  have  his  attack 
treated  in  this  way,  but  Peters  had 
said  his  say,  and  he  withdrew  to  tell 
the  fellows  outside  that  he  had  told  the 
Captain  what  he  thought  of  him.  Here 


he  met  with  disappointment.  No  one 
seemed  to  think  that  he  had  done  any¬ 
thing  to  be  proud  of.  One  youth, 
franker  than  the  others,  plainly  told 
him  that  he  was  a  fool  and  the  Captain 
was  the  best  friend  he  had. 

All  day  Peters  went  about  his  work 
suffering  from  wounded  pride,  and  go¬ 
ing  through  that  painful  process  of  read¬ 
justing  his  view  of  life  and  of  himself 
with  which  we  are  all  familiar. 

He  was  entertaining  serious  doubts  as 
to  whether  Peters  was  the  truly  great 
and  wise  personage  he  had  supposed  him 
to  be,  and  the  next  day  he  reported  at 
the  appointed  hour  with  all  his  wrath 
replaced  by  a  strange  feeling  of  doubt 
and  uncertainty. 

He  stood  before  the  Captain.  They 
looked  at  each  other  a  moment,  and  then 
Peters  cried.  Ths  rest  was  simple 
enough.  The  Captain  talked  to  him 
like  a  father,  and  the  boy  went  back  to 
his  work  with  a  new  idea  of  what  Hamp¬ 
ton  meant,  and  a  glimpse  of  some¬ 
thing,  a  purpose,  an  ideal  in  life,  differ¬ 
ent  from  anything  he  had  ever  known 
before. 

“You  see,”  said  the  Captain,  in  speak- 


ing  of  it  afterwards,  “the  boy  really 
thought  that  he  had  been  imposed  upon. 
He  was  grossly  ignorant,  of  course,  but 
he  wasn’t  afraid.  Such  a  boy  is  worth 
saving.”  And  he  was.  The  energy,  the 
ambition,  the  splendid  physical  supple¬ 
ness,  and  perfect  alignment  of  all  his 
faculties,  were  turned  into  new  chan¬ 
nels. 

He  played  ball.  When  the  “  help  ”  from 
the  Hotel  Chamberlin,  numbering  some 
of  the  Cuban  Giants  on  its  force,  visit¬ 
ed  the  school,  we  looked  to  Peters  to  pre¬ 
serve  our  laurels.  But  if  you  wanted  to 
see  the  real  Peters  in  action  you  should 
visit  the  Trade  School  and  note  his  ab¬ 
sorbed  interest  in  his  work,  and  then 
study  the  articles  turned  out  by  his 
skilled  hand.  He  is  going  back  to  New 
York  where  he  is  wanted  by  one  of  the 
big  manufacturers.  Prizes  in  the  field 
of  productive  work  lure  him  now,  a  so¬ 
ber  sense  of  his  place  in  society,  and  of 
the  opportunities  to  help  his  people  into 
lives  of  usefulness  and  power,  has  taken 
possession  of  him.  And  there  is  a  black 
mother  whose  anxiety  has  given  place 
to  joy  and  pride  in  her  son,  too  deep 
and  real  for  utterance. 


* 


Hampton  Sftetcbes 


Johnson  of  Hampton 

IE.  IL  (Eijirljwtf  r 


©V  3histitulp  Prras 
ijamplmt,  Bfrgiuia 
1912 


THIS  SKETCH  HAS  APPEARED 
IN  THE  “  UTICA  PRESS,”  THE 
BOSTON  TRANSCRIPT,”  THE 

“  youth’s  companion,”  and 

THE  “  SOUTHERN  WORKMAN.” 


JOHNSON  OF  HAMPTON 

BY  EDWARD  L.  CHICHESTER 
Assistant  Chaplain  at  Hampton  Institute 

¥N  order  to  give  some  idea  of  the  work 
*  done  at  Hampton  Institute,  it  is  cus¬ 
tomary  to  refer  to  the  school’s  record 
and  point  to  the  fact  that  36  educational 
leaders  ( a  list  headed  by  the  name  of 
Booker  T.  Washington  )  have  gone  out 
from  Hampton ;  that  the  school  has  sent 
out  2092  tradesmen  and  farmers ;  that 
1618  of  its  girls  are  homekeepers,  and  so 
on,  with  a  long  list  of  telling  figures, 
but  to  give  an  idea  of  the  peculiar 
quality  of  its  work  is  not  so  easy.  This 
work  is  unobtrusive  in  the  doing  and  its 
most  significant  results  do  not  lend 
themselves  readily  to  analysis  or  tabula¬ 
tion. 

About  four  years  ago  I  was  going 
through  the  dairy  and  saw  a  tall,  awk¬ 
ward  looking  Negro  washing  milk  cans. 
I  asked  his  name.  “Johnson.”  I  asked 
him  where  he  was  from,  and  straighten¬ 
ing  himself  up,  he  looked  at  me  in  a  be¬ 
wildered  way  and  answered,  “Alabama.” 

“  What  did  you  do  at  home?  ” 


“  I  worked  with  my  father  on  the 
farm.” 

“Did  your  father  own  his  place?” 

“No,  he  didn’t  own  anything,  but,” 
brightening  up,  “  he’s  made  the  first 
payment  on  a  home  since  I  came  here  to 
school.” 

The  boy’s  influence  had  told.  Hope 
and  ambition  had  come  to  that  black 
laborer  down  at  Alabama  because  his  son 
had  sent  in  a  report  of  a  new  and  broader 
outlook  for  his  people.  A  year  or 
two  after  this  I  was  in  the  Grand  Central 
Station  in  New  York,  and  saw  this  same 
youth  clutching  his  baggage  and  look¬ 
ing  about  him  in  a  bewildered  way.  A 
man  he  had  expected  to  meet,  who  would 
take  him  across  the  cit  y ,  was  not  on  hand. 

“  How  did  you  happen  to  be  in  New 
York?”  I  asked. 

He  told  me  that  he  had  been  working 
through  the  summer  with  a  dairy  farmer 
in  Connecticut,  and  was  on  his  way  to 
Hampton. 

“  Did  you  like  the  work?  ” 

“Yes,  and  he  wants  me  to  come  back 
next  year.” 

Progress  again.  This  boy  was  desired. 
Slow,  unpolished,  unprepossessing,  if 
you  will,  but  desired  where  he  had 
worked.  Some  progress  was  being  made 


here  toward  the  solution  of  the  Negro 
problem. 

Last  summer  I  saw  him  again.  He  was 
on  the  grounds  at  Hampton,  wearing  a 
uniform  with  stripes  betokening  official 
rank.  His  carriage  was  erect  and  soldier¬ 
ly.  He  was  still  slow  and  deliberate  in 
speech  and  movement,  but  his  eye  was 
clear,  and  he  looked  at  you  when  he 
spoke.  We  shook  hands  cordially  and  I 
asked  him  what  he  was  doing  now. 

“  I  am  in  charge  of  the  dairy,”  he  said. 
The  sup  rintendent  was  away  on  his 
vacation.  “We  are  milking  thirty  cows 
and  making  certified  milk  ” — milk  that  I 
learned  later  went  to  the  sick  babies  at 
Norfolk. 

“  How  does  the  inspector  rate  your 
milk?” 

“We  are  getting  ninety-six  and  ninety- 
eight  per  cent,”  he  said,  and  seemed 
rather  dissatisfied.  “  I  am  trying  to 
make  it  one  hundred,  but  I  haven’t  done 
it  yet,”  he  added  in  his  slow,  dogged 
way. 

He  took  me  over  the  dairy.  Every 
thing  was  scrupulously  clean.  The 
cattle  looked  fine.  He  knew  every  one, 
her  pedigree,  her  peculiarities,  her  capac¬ 
ity,  just  what  she  ate,  and  what  ration 
was  required  to  produce  the  best  results. 


ibampton  Sketches 


A  Man  to  Men 

E.  2J,  (Elf  trff  eater 


®ljr  Unatitutr  Press 
fiampton,  Btrgfttta 
1911 


* 


THIS  SKETCH  HAS  APPEARED 
IN  THE  "ALBANY  JOURNAL'' 
AND  IN  "HOSPITAL  TOPICS" 
OF  BUFFALO 


A  MAN  TO  MEN 


^TERMONT  has  a  prison  at  Rutland 
*  where  the  prisoners,  for  the  most 
part,  are  young  men,  sentenced  for  com¬ 
paratively  short  terms. 

One  day  last  summer  the  office  routine 
was  interrupted  by  a  telephone  call  an¬ 
nouncing  that  representatives  of  Hamp¬ 
ton  Institute,  Va.,  were  unexpectedly 
detained  at  the  station,  and  asking  if 
they  might  visit  the  prison.  The  man¬ 
agement  was  most  cordial.  “  Certainly.” 
Representatives  from  Hampton  meant 
plantation  songs. 

In  due  time  the  party  arrived.  It  con¬ 
sisted  of  one  of  the  instructors  ( a  white 
man),  a  Negro  disciplinarian,  an  Indian 
student,  and  four  colored  singers. 

They  were  taken  through  the  prison 
and  witnessed  the  sight  of  men  doing 
enforced  work  with  averted  faces,  felt 
the  pull  on  their  sympathies  that  always 
accompanies  such  an  inspection,  and 
then  adjourned  to  the  assembly  hall  of 
the  prison,  where  they  were  given  seats 
on  the  platform. 


The  straight-backed  wooden  benches 
were  filled  with  the  prisoners,  and  the 
guards,  holding  their  guns  across  their 
knees,  sat  in  chairs  in  the  aisle,  grim¬ 
faced  and  alert.  In  the  rear  were  as¬ 
sembled  a  number  of  guests,  friends  of 
the  warden,  some  ladies,  who  perhaps 
were  teachers  in  the  prison  Sunday 
school,  and  a  few  neighbors  who  had 
heard  of  the  unexpected  visit  and  had 
been  allowed  to  come  in  for  the  enter¬ 
tainment.  After  the  quartet  sang  there 
was  a  pause. 

“You  must  make  the  speech  here,” 
whispered  the  instructor  to  the  black 
man  at  his  side.  “  I  can’t,”  said  the 
other,  startled.  “Yes  you  can.  You  are 
our  disciplinarian.  You  are  in  control 
of  men.  Speak  to  them.” 

“  I  shall  surely  start  by  telling  them  I 
am  glad  to  see  so  many  of  them  here,” 
pleaded  the  other.  “Nonsense,”  and  be¬ 
fore  he  could  further  object  he  was  intro¬ 
duced  and  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
platform. 

This  man  was  very  big  and  black,  a 
pure-blood  Negro,  not  a  ready  speaker, 
but  he  was  a  man  who  had  had  his  share 
of  handicap  in  the  battle  of  life  and  won 
out,  while  the  men  before  him  were  suf- 


fering  different  degrees  of  defeat.  He 
hestitated,  then  he  began  with  a  story  of 
a  Negro  preacher  who  had  forgotten  his 
text  and  was  guyed  by  a  fellow  in  the 
gallery  who  had  had  too  much  “co’n 
juice.”  The  faces  of  his  audience  were 
a  study.  The  men  appreciated  the  situ¬ 
ation  he  described  perfectly.  He  then 
went  on  to  tell  another.  This  was  about 
a  fellow  sent  up  for  stealing  chickens 
and  discharged  in  time  to  attend  a  re¬ 
vival  meeting,  and  answer  the  sister 
whose  testimony  was  in  the  form  of  a 
criticism  of  the  absent  one.  The  men 
fairly  doubled  up  with  laughter  and  the 
lips  of  the  guards  twitched.  Some  of  the 
visitors  looked  as  if  they  hardly  knew 
how  to  take  the  speech.  What  was  he 
driving  at  anyway? 

Embarassed  and  uncertain  as  he  had 
begun,  he  had  established  a  bond  of  sym¬ 
pathy  between  the  sad-faced  company 
and  himself,  and  now  he  began  to  talk  to 
them  about  looking  their  fellow-men  in 
the  face  ;  about  meeting  the  adverse  ex¬ 
periences  of  life  unafraid ;  and  closed 
with  an  appeal  to  their  courage  and  man¬ 
hood  that  had  in  it  the  ring  of  sincerity. 


The  Negro,  the  member  of  a  struggling 
race  whose  road  to  success  is  beset  by 
weaknesses  inherent  in  itself,  and  op¬ 
posed  by  prejudices  and  powers  without, 
that  would  be  daunt  the  strongest  am¬ 
bition,  talked  simply  and  earnestly  con¬ 
cerning  the  equipment  needed  by  a  man 
who  faces  odds. 

When  he  had  finished  there  wasn’t 
much  time  left.  The  party  must  catch 
the  train,  but  when  the  warden  explained 
that  the  prisoners  were  allowed  to  show 
their  appreciation  of  anything  to  which 
they  had  listened  by  rising,  every  man 
sprang  to  his  feet  with  the  alacrity  of  a 
jack-in-the-box  ;  and  the  last  glimpse  of 
the  assembly  so  strangely  garbed  in  its 
uniform  of  disgrace,  showed  a  body  of 
human  faces  lighted  with  hope. 


3 


3 


Ibampton  Sketches 


The  Woodman 

?E.  ?C.  (£f}trljpatpr 


®l|p  ilnstttutp  ^rrss 
iijamptmt,  Btrgiuta 
1911 


THIS  SKETCH  HAS  APPEARED 
IN  THE  "INDIAN'S  FRIEND”  AND 
IN  THE  '  SOUTHERN  WORKMAN” 


THE  WOODMAN 


BY  E.  L.  CHICHESTER 


“The  Indian  is  not  a  lazy  man,  but  he  does  need 
to  be  provided  with  proper  channels  for  his  ener¬ 
gies,  and  incentives  for  their  use.”  F.  E.  Leupp. 


THERE  are  people  living  in  Syracuse 
who  remember  Joseph  Lion  well. 
He  was  an  Onondaga  Indian  and  worked 
at  the  carpenter’s  trade. 

To  most  white  people  Joseph  seemed 
commonplace  enough.  Absorbed,  taci¬ 
turn,  and  rather  gloomy,  we  can  picture 
him  clad  in  white  man’s  clothes,  and  work 
clothes  at  that,  that  fitted  him  in  the 
pitiful,  second-hand  fashion  that  the 
garments  of  civilization  fit  the  red  man. 
But  it  would  take  an  eloquent  pen  in¬ 
deed  to  describe  the  emotions  that  seeth¬ 
ed  in  his  soul.  The  swarthy,  expres¬ 
sionless  face  masked  the  memories  of  a 
great  past  in  which  the  man  lived  his 
real  life. 

The  Iroquois  had  possessed  and  ruled 
where  the  people  of  Syracuse  had  their 
homes,  and  the  Onondagas,  the  council 
tribe  of  the  Six  Nations,  had  made 
peace  and  declared  war  in  their  Council 
House  centuries  before  the  Town  Hall 
was  thought  of. 


Joseph,  edging  through  the  crowd  on 
his  way  to  his  cabin  on  the  reservation,  at 
the  close  of  his  day’s  work,  lost  him¬ 
self  in  these  dreams  of  the  past,  and 
when  he  had  shed  his  hated  overalls  and 
dressed  in  the  costume  of  his  people  he 
was  another  being. 

The  man  was  a  pagan  Indian  and 
smoked  his  pipe  in  solemn  conclave, 
or  hopped  about  in  the  ecstacy  of  the 
dance  within  sound  of  the  bell  of  the 
Old  Valley  Church.  All  this  was  bar¬ 
barous  and  meaningless  to  white  peo¬ 
ple  when  it  was  not  actually  sacrilegi¬ 
ous,  but  little  did  the  average  Christian 
missionary  of  that  day  appreciate  the 
sound  moral  principles  that  found  ex¬ 
pression  in  Joseph’s  guttural  speech,  or 
realize  that  there  was  a  character  in  the 
man  that  commanded  the  respect  of  the 
Indian  boys  who  looked  up  to  him, 
standing  in  his  buckskin  and  feathers, 
from  where  they  squatted  on  the  floor 
of  the  Council  House. 

One  of  these  boys  was  Joseph’s  grand¬ 
son,  little  Hohs-qua-sa-ga-da,  which 
means,  in  the  Indian  language,  “the  man 
with  the  ax  on  his  shoulder,”  or  “  the 
Woodman.”  In  the  boy  the  saddened 
heart  of  Joseph  found  some  solace,  and 
he  cherished  the  hope  that  the  solemn 


meaning  of  the  dance  would  be  ob¬ 
served  by  him,  and  the  memories  and 
traditions  of  the  past  greatness  of  his 
people  be  kept  alive  in  his  person. 

He  taught  the  little  Woodman  from 
his  full  store  of  Indian  tradition  and 
ethics,  and  warned  him  with  gloomy 
threats  against  the  white  man  and  all 
his  ways;  especially,  so  Joseph  told  him, 
was  he  to  shun  the  printed  book,  for 
evil  for  the  Indian,  and  evil  only, 
was  to  be  found  there.  A  devil ,  he  de¬ 
clared,  lurked  between  its  covers. 

Joseph  died  among  the  very  last  of 
the  old  regime,  and  with  him  went  out, 
not  only  his  store  of  memories  of  a  past 
greatness  and  power,  but  most  of  the 
reverence  that  invested  the  Indian  cere¬ 
monies,  and  all  that  was  edifying  and 
inspiring  in  them. 

The  Woodman,  an  orphan,  was  taken 
into  the  family  of  relatives.  They  were 
reservation  Indians  with  all  that  that 
implied  of  ignorance,  poverty,  and  mal¬ 
adjustment  to  the  life  and  interests  of 
this  great  and  properous  country.  With 
children  of  their  own  and  barely 
enough  to  feed  them,  the  outlook  for 
this  extra  little  Indian  was  a  sad  one. 

He  used  to  sit  on  his  bench  against 


* 


the  wall  while  the  family  partook  of  its 
meal,  and  was  allowed  to  approach  the 
table  and  help  himself  to  anything  that 
was  left  after  the  others  were  through. 
It  makes  one’s  heart  ache  to  think  of 
the  hollow-eyed,  stoical  little  fellow, 
with  his  empty  stomach  and  timid 
spirit.  People  think  of  Indians  as  fierce, 
and  forget  that  they  are  wild  by  nature 
and  share  the  fears  of  all  wild  things. 

After  a  season  of  this  life  Providence 
interfered  in  the  Woodman’s  case  in  the 
person  of  a  lady  missionary.  This  wo¬ 
man  found  a  white  farmer  with  a  kind 
wife  and  a  bountiful  table,  and  got  the 
poor,  half-starved  little  Woodman  into 
their  home. 

There  were  small  girls  in  the  family 
who  were  kind  to  him,  and  taught  him 
to  speak  English  and  something  of 
reading  and  writing  as  well.  He  did 
not  forget  his  grandfather’s  teaching. 
The  memory  of  the  grave,  earnest  face 
of  Joseph  Lion  commanded  his  rev¬ 
erence,  but  the  fear  of  the  white  man’s 
influence  was  lessened  among  these 
friends,  and  a  curiosity  to  find  and  see, 
with  his  own  eyes,  the  devil  that  lurked 
in  the  printed  book  gave  a  kind  of 
wicked  zest  to  his  studies. 


After  a  year  or  two,  through  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  same  good  woman  who 
had  found  him  his  home  on  a  farm, 
the  Woodman  was  sent  to  Hampton  In¬ 
stitute  in  Virginia.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  Government  would  help  him 
here,  but  Uncle  Sam,  who  makes  an 
annual  appropriation  for  his  red 
children  sent  to  this  school,  looked 
askance  at.  a  youth  with  a  Central  New 
York  address.  No  Indian  surely  could 
be  found  in  the  midst  of  this  civilized 
Empire  State— that  is,  not  one  who  was 
Indian  enough  to  draw  public  moneys — 
and  the  fact  that  the  youth  in  question 
was  the  grandson  of  an  Onondaga  chief, 
that  his  ancestors  had  never  voted, 
that  he  made  his  wants  known  in  the 
English  tongue  with  difficulty,  and 
that  he  regarded  white  people  and  their 
ways  with  ill-concealed  fear,  weighed 
not  a  whit  in  giving  him  his  standing 
as  a  nation’s  ward. 

If  he  stayed  at  Hampton  he  must  re¬ 
main  on  the  footing  of  the  Negro 
students  and  earn  his  own  keep  while 
he  carried  on  his  studies.  It  was  hard, 
but  it  was  this  or  return  to  the  hard¬ 
ships  and  uncertainties  of  life  on  the 
reservation,  so  he  entered  on  his  work 


year,  a  year  with  long  hours  and  steady 
toil,  with  much  of  the  spirit  of  a  galley 
slave. 

How  impossible  it  is  for  a  white  man 
to  understand  the  contempt  with  which 
an  old-time  Indian  regards  work!  For 
a  free  man  to  voluntarily  devote  his 
waking  hours  to  toil  is  quite  beyond 
the  Indian’s  power  to  conceive.  This 
attitude  toward  work  was  bred  in  the 
Woodman’s  bone,  but  Hampton  holds 
the  secret  of  joy  in  toil,  if  it  is  held 
anywhere,  and  the  Woodman,  now 
grown  to  be  a  tall  youth  in  his  early 
twenties,  actually  came  to  like  the  life 
with  its  long  hours  and  constantly 
stimulated  pride  in  accomplishment. 
He  came  to  perceive,  with  more  and 
more  distinctness,  what  it  was  that  in¬ 
terested  the  white  man  in  his,  to  the 
Indian,  singular  manner  of  life.  He 
chose  the  machinist’s  trade  and  in  three 
years  gained  a  degree  of  skill  that  en.- 
abled  him  to  find  work  outside.  Then 
he  went  back  to  the  neighborhood  of  his 
home  and  entered  a  railroad  shop,  where 
he  built  locomotives. 

Picture  him  at  this  time — tall,  silent, 
and  pre-occupied,  but  with  a  smile  that 
lighted  his  whole  face  and  won  the  in¬ 
terest  and  sympathy  of  the  veriest 


stranger.  He  had  marked  Indian  features 
and  eyes  that,  like  his  grandfather’s, 
seemed  to  see  things  beyond  the  task  in 
hand, but  this,  in  the  Woodman’s  case, 
was  only  seeming;  for  though  he  remem¬ 
bered  the  traditions  of  the  reservation, 
and  his  own  childhood  experiences  and 
impressions  in  the  Council  House,  these 
were  but  dim  memories,  and  the  de¬ 
mands  of  his  trade  and  the  friends  and 
interests  of  the  active  life  he  was  living, 
satisfied  him. 

The  Woodman,  in  his  thoughts  and 
pursuits,  had  become  a  white  man;  but 
back  of  it  all  was  race  consciousness; 
and  the  school  that  had  trained  him  had 
impressed  him  with  a  sense  of  a  peculiar 
responsibility  to  his  people.  This 
showed  in  an  interesting  way  after  he 
had  been  for  some  time  in  the  shop. 
The  men  proposed  his  name  as  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  their  Union.  He  thought  the  mat¬ 
ter  over  with  care  and  finally  consented 
to  join  as  an  Indian.  The  members  de¬ 
murred,  but  he  was  firm,  and  they  took 
him  in  on  a  basis  that  left  the  door  open 
to  others  of  his  race. 

Seventeen  years  the  man  followed  his 
trade  in  this  shop;  he  was  not  satisfied 
to  do  ordinary  work,  but  studied  and 


practised  till  his  product  ranked  with 
the  best.  Later  he  would  speak  of  the 
delight  he  took  in  this  work,  the  delight 
incident  to  a  growing  comprehension 
and  the  increased  respect  of  his  fellow 
workmen.  He  had  acquired  what  Gen¬ 
eral  Armstrong  used  to  call  “the  work 
habit.” 

Now  he  went  back  to  Hampton  and 
assisted  in  the  machine  shop  there.  He 
was  again  thrown  with  his  people — the 
Sioux,  the  Crows,  the  Navalioes,  the 
Apaches,  and  the  pauperized  reserva¬ 
tion  Indians  of  the  East.  He  did  not 
classify  these  people — the  Woodman’s 
mind  was  not  at  all  of  this  order.  He 
simply  liked  folks,  and  fraternized  with 
the  children  of  the  red  race — his  folks 
curious,  suspicious  youths — they  were 
playing  at  the  white  man’s  work.  The 
Woodman  knew  just  how  they  felt.  Had 
he  not  been  there  himself  ?  The  call 
of  the  wild  was  in  their  blood.  Time — 
three,  four,  five  years — more  time,  and 
still  more,  was  needed  to  drill  hand 
and  mind  to  the  white  man’s  task  and 
give  the  things  that  interested  him  a 
chance  to  interest  them.  How  patiently 
the  Woodman  worked  with  them!  How 
well  he  understood  ! 


Visitors  would  ask  him,  with  unbelief 
in  their  tones,  if  he  could  make  these 
fellows  work.  He  fairly  beamed  as 
he  answered,  reminding  them  of  the 
background  of  these  youths,  and  assur¬ 
ing  them  they  would  all  come  out  well 
if  one  only  understood  and  had  pa¬ 
tience.  To  meet  him  in  the  shop  at 
Hampton  was  a  lesson  on  the  proper 
attitude  of  the  strong  toward  the  weak, 
not  easily  forgotten. 

He  had  land  on  his  reservation  and 
retixrned,  in  time,  to  identify  himself 
with  the  Indians  of  his  tribe.  One 
after  another  of  the  boys  here  came 
under  his  influence  and  was  persuaded 
to  learn  a  trade.  One  after  another 
drew  out  of  a  condition  of  dependence 
and  dread,  and  tasted  the  freedom  and 
power  that  come  to  the  man  who  knows 
how.  The  Woodman  himself  secured  a 
steady  job  in  one  of  the  machine  shops 
in  Syracuse.  Here  you  meet  him,  dress¬ 
ed  in  his  working  clothes,  and  thread¬ 
ing  his  way  through  the  crowds  in  the 
steeet  after  his  day’s  work,  as  his  grand¬ 
father  did  before  him;  but  whereas  poor 
Joseph  Lion  dreamed  embittered  dreams 
and  felt  himself  the  victim  of  untoward 
circumstances,  his  grandson  has  con- 


3  0112  062141582 

quered  where  he  was  overcome,  a 
looks  forward,  where  Joseph  dwelt  oil 
on  the  past. 

The  Woodman  is  a  Christian  but  hel 
not  a  preacher;  that  is,  he  does  not  tai 
easily  in  public.  The  English  languaj 
even,  he  does  not  speak  as  if  it  were  t 
mother  tongue,  but  he  is  a  doer  of  l.j 
word.  Only  those.in  his  confidence  kn 
with  what  interest  he  watches  the  grow 
of  his  brother.  How  will  this  Indian  q 
whom  the  Woodman  carries  on  . 
heart,  come  out  ?  Shy,  taciturn,  qu™ 
tioning,  he  may  break  on  the  rocks  tfflL 
wreck  civilized  as  well  as  unciviliaW 
man,  but  he  is  rescued  from  the  c 
rot,  the  dependence,  the  utter  hopelej 
ness  of  the  reservation  Indian.  He 
a  living,  integral  unit  of  the  land 
which  he  was  born.  For  better  or 
worse  he  is  one  of  us. 


